


I Will Be Right Here Waiting For You

by Anonymous



Series: Starker Week 2018 [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, M/M, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Older Man/Younger Man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-07 14:37:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15221348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Tony is born without a soulmate, which is normal, but he hits a lot of birthdays before the soul mark even shows up. It takes 30 years for the words written on his arm to appear, to show him, in writing, the first words his soulmate will ever say to him. It's another 15 years until those words are spoken to him, but it takes almost two more years for him and his soulmate to even talk about it and Tony isn't getting any younger.





	I Will Be Right Here Waiting For You

**Author's Note:**

> Starker Week Day 2

Tony’s soulmates first words to him are boring and also seem really embarrassing given the grammatical indication of a stutter in the phrase.

_“Uhm—what—what are you doing…? Hey! —uhm—I’m—I’m—I’m Peter.”_

Tony’s of the lucky few to have his soulmate’s first name written on his arm, some people are even lucky enough to have their soulmates _entire_ name written on their person, but Tony just has his soulmate’s first name, which is not something a lot of people can say.

_His name is Peter._

But all his life Tony figured that his soulmate either has a speech impediment, Tourette syndrome, or will be extremely star struck upon meeting him.

It happens to be the latter.

Tony also happens to meet Peter— _Peter Benjamin Parker_ —at possibly the worst time someone can meet their soulmate.

He’s coming into the kid’s (he’s 15 for Christ sakes!) house unannounced to convince—lie—to his _15-year-old_ soulmate’s aunt about wanting him for an internship. Instead he’s recruiting him to help his side of the Avengers bring in and possibly arrest the other half of the Avengers he’s currently at war with.

Tony sometimes wonders why the universe hates him so much to give him an underaged soulmate as well as a super powered one.

But Tony doesn’t tell Peter about him being his soulmate and is a bit surprised—and worried—when Peter doesn’t even bring it up. But Tony shoves all that aside to manage the task at hand, recruiting Spider-Man onto his side of the Avengers.

 

 

Tony benches Peter after he finds Peter mostly passed out on the hard concrete pavement of the German airport. Though he does appreciate Peter’s fighting spirit, he doesn’t want to risk the kid’s well-being.

And after Siberia, Tony picks up himself up so he can pick Peter at his hotel in Germany and they travel—with Happy—on one of Tony's private jets and back to the States. Tony is silent the entire plan ride. When they arrive back in New York, Happy drives them all to Queens to drop Peter off. Still, neither of them say anything about the subject of them possibly being soulmates.

 After dropping off Peter, Tony ends up leaving New York for nearly four months, deciding to take some time off. But after taking the vacation for his mental health and physical health, after selling the Tower, and after taking away and giving back Peter’s Spiderman suit because of the Vulture incident, Tony decides to give the kid an actual internship at SI, given the kid’s gifted inventing abilities and beyond advanced test scores.

 

 

They spend Saturdays together, 10 AM-6 PM every week in the lab, inventing together, talking with each other, and slowly becoming friends. Well, as much of friends Tony can be with a kid 30 years younger than him. And yet, the fact the kid could be his soulmate boggles his mind. Though, the largest age gap between soulmates—recorded—is 32 years, it still bothers Tony a bit. He shouldn't be with a kid, and yet, with each passing day, he finds himself more and more attracted to Peter.

But, they have no shared life experiences—except for both having dead parents and dead uncles/uncle figures— but they’ve got nearly nothing in common—they’re both into sci-fi movies and enjoy science in general—but they’re much too different either way—they are both incredibly smart people who only want to do good in the world. So, there shouldn’t be a reason as to why they’re soulmates. Or maybe, Tony isn’t Peter’s soulmate, which is mostly likely why he hasn’t brought it up as of now. Peter seems to be the type of person to be excited he's found his soulmate. So if he's silent on the matter, it means he hasn't found that person yet and Tony's looking for another Peter. 

Tony decides to ignore the tightening in his chest at the thought of his Peter not being his soulmate.

It’s on a rainy Saturday afternoon when Tony realizes Peter's sudden change in body language. Well, okay, it's not sudden, it's been going on for months, but today it's 100 times less subtle.

Tony and Peter are working together on the IronSpider suit, a name Peter came up with because the suit’s made of the same material the Iron Man suits are. Tony finds Peter’s even more unsubtle hero worship to be extremely endearing and rather adorable in a strange sexy way. His naive innocence borderline seductive in the way it seems he knows exactly what he's doing when he touches Tony in the simplest of way. He finds Peter adorable in the sense he's a young impressionable teen who dotes on Tony like an attention seeking puppy dog. And Tony knows that even if they are soulmates, Peter’s still just 16 and half years old and he has to wait until he’s 17 to pursue him. But the kid's too damn irresistible. 

Tony is working on the main frame, like he had with Peter’s other suit, and decides to keep the Baby Monitor Protocols installed because he worries for Peter. It’s not like he’s a creep or overbearing. He just wants to make sure Peter really is okay when he says so after each encounter with the bad guys.

While Tony works on that, Peter’s busy with the making sure the web shooters are working well. He's standing, bent over the desk, his sweet ass wiggling in the air. And though it doesn't seem like he's trying to actively trying to seduce him, Peter is still too damn hot to just be waving his ass in the air, he's practically asking Tony to grab it. But Tony shakes those thoughts out of his head to continue on the task at hand. He does eventually end up standing beside Peter as he works on his web shooters. The kid’s formula for webbing is absolutely brilliant, and Tony always makes an effort to praise him for his work.

“Nice work kid.” Tony says to Peter after he puts the finishing touches on the web shooters.

Peter beams at the praise, but then the smile fades into an uncertain frown.

“You know, you say that to me a lot.” Peter says with flushed cheeks. Tony raises an eyebrow at the kid, wondering what he’s about to say. “You even said it to me the first time we met.” Peter says, lifting his sweater sleeve to reveal in dark red writing the words _‘nice work kid.’_

Tony blinks, and knows he never said those words to Peter when he first met him. They weren’t playing back in his head, the day he went to Peter’s old apartment to recruit him for the Avengers.

Tony sees Peter picking up on his own confusion and he quickly covers his arm with his sleeve, hiding the words on his arm.

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t realize…maybe the words aren’t yours…” Peter mutters.

“No…no, kiddo, look.” Tony says and lifts up his sleeve to show off his words, Peter’s words, to him.  “You said this the day we met in your apartment, but…but I don’t remember saying those words to you that day.” He explains.

“We met before then…” Peter trails off.

Tony snorts and quickly grabs Peter’s hand, so they could go and sit on the couch across the room. They need a little break anyway and some time to talk about everything.

As Tony sits Peter down, Peter quickly begins his side of the story, by first asking him if he remembers the attack at the Stark Expo in 2010.

Tony nods, remembering that year was the year he could have died, and none of this, would be happening had he given up on his life like he originally planned. Tony sometimes still wishes he had died, but looking at Peter, he realizes now maybe he was meant to live.

Tony takes himself out of his thoughts to listen to Peter.

“Well, I was there, I was young, Aunt May and Uncle Ben decided to take me to the expo to make me feel better after my parents died…” Peter says sadly. “And when those robot things attacked one was targeting me…”

“You were the kid in the Iron Man helmet!?” Tony exclaims, suddenly remembering the little boy in the Iron Man helmet trying to face off with one of Hammer’s rogue bots. He had gotten there just in time to blast the thing to bits, saving the young kid in the process. He remembers telling him he did a good job, to boost morale, or something. The memory is a little fuzzy to him, given the circumstances of him not being in the best health. But Tony remembers the kid, he even signed something for him and patted his head, dismissing him as another young fan. 

“Yeah, I was that kid.” Peter says. “You saved my life and said my words." He rubs the spot on his arm where the words are located, smiling softly. "Afterwards I told Aunt May and Uncle Ben and they didn’t seem to be thrilled that my soulmate is so much older than me. So, they told me I should wait until I'm older to come out and say something…Aunt May still thinks I should wait, she thought that when you showed up that day we formally met, that I had reached out and already told you, but instead you had the internship to give me…which now she knows it just me being Spiderman, but uh yeah…” Peter finishes his tiny ramble.

Tony can only smile at Peter's cute ramble of words. But then it hits Tony.

Peter really is his soulmate and the kid’s been keeping it from him for years! Tony doesn't know if he should be hurt by that but understands where the kid and his guardians were coming from. Had Tony met Peter right after nearly dying, he would have scared the kid off for good and he truly would be alone. But now, Peter seems willing to put up with him. 

“It’s alright Peter, I understand why May would want you to wait, you’re young still, and she wants you to worry about other things and not celebrity soulmate drama.” He says, realizing he'll have to deal with that drama too. The press will eat it up. Tony pats his hand on Peter’s shoulder gently, smiling gently at him. “I’m glad you told me, I was beginning to worry that maybe you might not be my soulmate.” He admits.

“You want to be soulmates?” Peter asks, slightly shocked.

“Of course I do," Tony says softly. "You’re intelligent, beautiful, and very kind. Who wouldn’t want you as their soulmate?” Tony notices Peter wants to answer that question, but he doesn’t and Tony pulls the kid in for a hug.

Peter hugs him back, tight, and they stay like that for a while.

“We’re soulmates.” Tony says. “I never really thought I deserved a soulmate and now I have possibly the best person as my soulmate…I—I can’t believe it.” They break the hug and Peter sniffles a little and nods.

“I’ve never would have thought this could happen, the moment you said the words I thought I was too young and you too out of my league for us to be together.” Peter says and Tony nods at that, he’s never thought he could have a soulmate let alone have one so perfect. He already loves Peter so much and their relationship is still so new. But Tony knows that now he can be happy with Peter.

He finally has his soulmate.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading! I decided to use the soulmates au for this day because I had this idea drifting around my brain ever since Tom Holland confirmed the kid in Iron Man 2 was Peter.


End file.
